All that’s left in the empty room is the dream called her life. Voices can be heard from the kitchen.
Daughter
In the darkness of midnight, Lūcija turns on the lamp and looks to see if her mother is still breathing. She’s so shriveled. Lūcija is now her mother’s mother.
The mother is her daughter’s little child.
Her mother’s mouth is opened slightly, her eyes closed.
All the witnesses to this horror gleam at her from the dresser top — diapers, sippy-cups, mugs, wet wipes. Creams for rashes and sores. Things for a child. A newborn child. Only this birth is happening backwards — from the light into the darkness.
And then the child becomes strangely still.
Daughter looks at mother. She’d give up everything for her to keep on living. But over the course of their time together all they mostly did was argue.
Daughter looks at mother. Places a hand on her. Her head is still warm, her arm still warm. The last bit of heat.
Leaving is so difficult and drawn-out.
And how this excruciating period of time finally brought them together.
All of Them
Gran’s soul is fighting its hardest to get out, fluttering in her head. Her mouth gasps for air. Her relatives take turns wetting her lips with water.
When her light is about to give out, Pāvils jumps to his feet, wails and grabs his grandmother by the shoulders.
He cries:
“Don’t fall asleep! Wake up!”
Gran comes to and asks:
“What did you do that for? All of them were coming to greet me.”
Gran dies the next day, when all her relatives have stepped out for just a moment.
But how beautiful she looks.
Granddaughter
Ieva crouches in the middle of the field and watches two giant tree stumps burn among the pile of branches. The wind has picked up and sparks fly through the air. Gran’s things are among the kindling.
Not diaries, letters, or notes — just things. Things from her final months.
The black plastic trash bags melt, split open like blistering skin, and drip into the fire. The flames lick at the dingy shoes, the warped sleeves, lace pillowcases. A mug shatters with a bang, the plastic bottles melt into puddles.
Ieva watches on as if made of stone. The fire melts her down and pours her into a different mold.
There will be nothing left when the fire burns out. Only memories.
Andrejs's Religion
Andrejs’s Religion
Outside it’s rainy and incredibly windy.
The woman moves into the kitchen and begins to season the meat.
Andrejs sits down at the corner of the table.
“What are you looking at?” she asks.
You can’t really know anything these days. This is only the second time they’ve met, and he’s kind of quiet. But his eyes are like razors — sharp, cutting. She could easily use them to slice the roast.
“What I’m looking at? Just looking.”
“Everyone looks for different reasons.”
“I’m not everyone. I’m Andrejs.”
“Pass me the fillet knife.”
“Which one’s that?”
“With the threaded cord.”
Andrejs hands her the knife, she cuts the roast. It’s raining outside. You can’t really know anything. These days.
But she’s a woman, a real woman. Seasoning a roast in front of him with garlic and herbs. She wants to cook it tomorrow in his honor.
He can’t look away.
A woman is a real home. Food. Children. Holidays. And shelter. Happiness.
“What are you looking at?” she asks again. She should stay quiet, the idiot. She’ll ruin the entire night with her questions.
“You’re cutting and cutting,” he answers.
“I’m done,” she says and wipes her hands on her apron, then takes it off and hangs it up. “Now what?”
They go to watch TV, but Andrejs wants her to just take off her panties already.
Outside is rainy and cold. And all the while Andrejs feels the woman next to him. He feels as if he’s the only one in the world who understands what a woman is. She doesn’t even get it herself. Look at her head dropping onto his shoulder. She’s dozed off.
At that moment, Andrejs is visited by Ieva. By memories of her.
Violently, as usual.
An awful fate.
But still — it was his fate, too.
He’s a little unsettled by the Black Balzam he drank for warmth and courage — just 100g of Balzam.
He glares at the TV, then at the woman asleep next to him. The movie of her life projects itself under her eyelids. It’s fascinating and sad to watch that kind of movie.
In his consciousness, his life separates itself into two lives. Though technically into one — at the Zari house with Ieva, plus his time in prison. He doesn’t call the prison he’s now locked up in “life.” It’s a strange waking state where he thinks about life, remembers it, but doesn’t actually live it. The whole time there’s this distance, this space between him and existence. Right now he has a woman, the woman has average breasts, an apartment, and a roast, and obviously some feelings for him. But all he can do again and again is chase his own memories. Somewhere hides the thought that it would be possible to organize them all onto a shelf.
A stupid thought. Because these memories don’t do anything but unleash insanity and the feeling of being ripped open. The desire to drink, get drunk, get away from yourself. Memories go around in his head like on a carousel and drive him even deeper into the cage that is his body. They strengthen and cement one-of-a-kind people like Andrejs: thirty-nine years old, divorced, one daughter, fifteen years in prison for murder, released early for good behavior, saving him five years’ time, during which he just worked in the same town the prison was in. Hasn’t even gone more than a kilometer from the barbed wire fence. Alright, so he’s crossed a few sand lots, closer to the highway. His carpentry shop is right here, everything is right here — a shack heated by a wood stove and with an outhouse behind the sheds. A dirt-colored building, dirt-colored porch, dirt-colored scenery behind moldy blinds. All the brambles and raspberry bushes and clematis — nature’s colors. Clothes, the neighbor’s dog, the never-ending spring or fall, who knows. A dusty steppe between the highway and a ditch.
But what’s that flame, like a wandering ship between the blinds every day and night? It’s his prison. The powerful searchlights, the thick stone walls, the tangled network of barbed wire — it all glows white, even in the fog, even in blizzards beyond the distant field. Andrejs’s prison. His prison.
The black swan.
He looks to the window. This is the woman’s apartment on the other side of the river, he doesn’t see the prison when he looks out — just the town and a church.
Not good.
He is overcome by awe, he has goosebumps.
What is he without prison? He hasn’t been away from it in so long that it seems like he never left.
He’s comforted by the thought that he doesn’t have to go far. He could leave right now if he wanted to. Push the woman’s head off his shoulder, put on his jacket and go. Cross the bridge, cross the river. He’d stop in the middle for a smoke. It would be nice, a nice breeze over the middle of the river — cool, wide. Free.
Andrejs’s doctors don’t let him smoke. His hand hurts; his right shoulder, knees, and heart all hurt. The doctors told him to quit smoking. To cut back. He went to three doctors in a single day, so as not to waste his time — otherwise all you do is go from one clinic to the next. And that’s where you’ll stay.